Evaluation question 3 & 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

How did you attract/address your audience?

By Mansour Aetekal

Who would be the audience for our media product?

Age

Firstly, the age that I chose for our target audience was influenced by my questionnaire research. By looking at the diagram to the right, you can see that over 75% of the people that took part in our survey, said that they were aged 15-20. This gave me an clear indication as to what age group we should pick for our target audience. Also by looking at the diagram on the bottom left, you can see that 69% of people said that they liked thrillers. This therefore means that the majority of people who like thrillers were aged 15-20 because these statistics were notably higher than other choices, this would therefore mean that our thriller would attract this particular age group. Eventually, I decided to make the age for our target audience ranging from 12-20. This decision was based on our target audience research but other reasons also contributed. Initially, I decided to go 3 years below the age group shown in our research because of many different reasons. Firstly, I found that our thriller piece didn’t include any inappropriate scenes that would only be suitable for people over 18, we only included one violent scene which included a gun with the death of one of the characters which also showed their blood wound, however the gunshot had appropriate special FX added to it and the blood wound wasn’t too graphic which meant that teens and viewers of 12+ would be able to watch it. We also carried out other research for our target audience, one of which was the regulations research which meant we had to research about the BBFC which is the British Board Of Film Classification who classify certain movies with different age restrictions. The research into this particular company gave us the guidelines of what a typical 12+ film should include and these guidelines matched what our thriller included which made it even more suitable to choose this age group. For example, the BBFC states that films at 12+ are allowed to include moderate violence but should not dwell on detail. There should be no emphasis on injuries or blood, but occasional gory moments may be permitted if they can be justified by their context. This is extremely similar to our piece because we also show a brief moment of a blood wound , you can see this from our media product in the top right-hand corner. They also state that weapons and action sequences can be presented however weapons that are easily accessible by children such as knives should not be permitted. This is also illustrated in our thriller because we only use a gun which seems to be a weapon that people over 12+ see in films and would not be influenced to acquire one in reality. Overall, I believe that the age restriction or classification for the film is justified through our media product itself but also through previous media research that aided with our ability to make the right decision .

GenderAs well as age, our thriller was aimed at a certain gender also, this decision was also influenced by target audience research along with other factors. Firstly, by looking at the diagram to the left we can see that over half of the people that took part in our questionnaire for our research were males. Also, by looking at the diagram under it we can see that 69% of the people also that took part in the survey like thriller films. By combining the two pie charts we can see that the majority of people who like thrillers are male. Furthermore, I decided to make the gender of the target audience aimed at males more than females. This is because males like thrillers more as more of them took part in our thriller questionnaire and most of them like thrillers, which gave is an indication that they might like our action thriller as it goes under the same category. More males took part in our survey which meant that this gender was more popular and influenced my decision to choose that particular gender to focus on or target. Not only did the research contribute to this but other factors also gave clear indications of what gender to aim our thriller at. Although action thrillers are increasing becoming appealing to women in the last decade, from the codes and conventions used in our thriller we felt that males would still be more attracted to our thriller. Firstly, our thriller includes the death of a woman where as the two males included stay alive. This particular gender representation portrays women in a negative way through her death, in contrast the men on screen seem to stay dominant as the main antagonist and protagonist(Look at these characters at the bottom of the slide). By analysing this, I came to the conclusion that women would not approve of our thriller because they are witnessing another woman die, this ultimately decreases the morale of women and they may also feel as if they are not considered enough which would be the typical mind-set of female viewers. In contrast males would appeal more as they're gender are still prevailing on screen and they might feel encouraged because they have not faced the death of any males as the men in our thriller don’t die. We also found that males are more attracted to the moderate violence that is included in action thrillers like ours. In contrast women are found to be more attracted to romance or drama films that don’t have as much action. Overall, we found that our gender focus would stay on males because of the research that I have done but also through my natural instincts to pick certain decisions based on the attitudes of action thriller films in the film industry.

Main Antagonist Main Protagonist

How did we attract our target audience?After deciding what target audience our film was going to focus on. We would essentially have to attract this audience to ensure that they would want to carry on watching after the opening has ended. To make sure we attracted the audience within the first minutes of our action thriller, we included different key aspects of the film that would attract and interact with our audience.

The use of a gun(Look below)As our target audience was based around viewers who would enjoy and like thrillers. We included the use of a gun to illustrate that our piece was an action thriller. Not only would we abide by codes and conventions but we would also attract viewers. The use of the gun will appeal to teenagers ageing from 16-19 because this particular age range are more likely to play violent videogames such as Call of Duty and other games that appeal to teenagers which are also social trends, for example, a survey conducted online showed that 97% of teens are gamers. The age range is also in the category of our target audience. It will appeal to them because they are already familiarised with the use of weapons through gaming, therefore the idea of a gun in an action thriller will aid in their ability to not only enjoy the film but will also influence them into carry on watching because it is relatable. The medium shot used to portray the gun also emphasises the level of detail used to represent the weapon in a realistic way, quite similar to how videogames show guns in detail also which is seen by the teens in our target audience.

The significant deathOur action thriller included the death of Sara Smith who is a pregnant wife that is unable to repay a loan back to Arthur Banks who is the films protagonist and the villain who shoots her in cold blood. Killing is an unfortunate everyday occurrence which is an example of social realism. Films that touch on this subject are often popular with the target audience of 12+. For example, there are many deaths in the Harry Potter series and their target audience is usually aimed at viewers of the age of 12+ which is also linked to our target audience age range. In action thrillers, death is usually the reason for the unbalanced equilibrium that would trigger a plan to restore the equilibrium. This means that people would be attracted to the idea of death because of its ability to start a good movie plot, for example, a cunning revenge plan that would excite and stimulate viewers to carry on watching a film because of its unpredictable outcomes. This is linked to our thriller because the husband of Sara Smith, Marcus Smith , watches her die and runs to her in her dying moments. He then finds out that she is pregnant. The significant death and shocking news of Marcuse's wife being pregnant can attract viewers because they would be curious as to what would happen next as well as seeing what Marcuse's response would be which is also a revenge plot against the antagonist Arthur Banks. The shot of Marcus and Sara Smith illustrates the close connection that the two characters had, this can also appeal to viewers who are in a relationship because they are seeing another representation of one and might feel that they can also relate , therefore our film also has the ability to not only address our audience but we are able to communicate and interact with them through relatable aspects of everyday life.

The use of ActorsThrough the simple use of actors we were able to attract but also retain the audiences attention however I am only mentioning the male gender because this was our target audience. By including a black main male actor we were able to appeal to our target audience. The use of a black main character subverts the social expectations of how main characters are suppose to be in typical action thrillers, For example, the majority of main characters in action thrillers are usually white. This challenging convention of our thriller would attract our audience because they are inclined to be more fascinated to watch our thriller because it includes aspects that go against stereotypes. Our thriller will therefore stand out as an action thriller and will be seen as unique, as a result, characters may also take interest in a film that doesn’t abide by the normal expectations of typical action thrillers, they are going to want to watch a film that is distinctive in its ability to portray itself in a different approach.

Main Black character

Conclusion for Question 3+4Overall, our main target audience was based on age and gender. We felt that other considerations were irrelevant, for example, a persons social class. Altogether I chose our target age to be 12-21 year olds. This was illustrated through the research and opinions that I presented in the second slide. Our gender was also focused on males , this was also influenced by research but also other factors that contributed to my target audience decisions. I have shown specific diagrams and pictures that have related to our target audience, this is so you can see visual evidence. I believe my decision in reference to target audience was accurate enough and will benefit our group because we are able to successfully target a specific audience but also attract them through our thriller product. Our ability to attract/address our audience was based around the key aspects of our thriller which include the use of props, use of actors and also how we portrayed different scenarios, all of these aspects would contribute to our ability of appealing to a wider range of our target audience. The target audience was important because we would then need to relate this to how we would draw in the target audience. Overall, I believe that the target audience we planned for would be satisfied significantly by our thriller as it was designed specifically for our thriller. The ability to answer and evaluate these questions was supported by other sources such as the coursework we were assigned that helped me choose a specific audience.